Beijing Wants Your Designs For a New Solar Power Tower

Already home to its own large windfarm, and the host city of the 2008 "Green" Olympics, Beijing is looking for a smart design for the central solar tower of Asia's first ever solar power plant. The 100-meter-plus tower will receive focused solar energy that will be reflected onto its top solar receiver by an array of thousands of sun-tracking mirrors, or heliostats, installed in front of the tower. The plant would be built near the foot of the Great Wall to the northwest of the Chinese capital. Sponsored by the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the solar thermal plant is being described as "a model for China's upcoming other new solar power plants around the country."

The design competition, which will produce one first prize winner (RMB 30,000), two second prize winners (RMB 20,000) and three third prize (RMB 5,000) winners, closes on January 15, 2008. Click here to learn more and enter.